Roxane
by xTitania
Summary: From the infamous play, Cyrano de Bergerac. Upon the verbally climactic demise of Cyrano, Roxane remains, widowed by each love.


_Roxane after time has withered her youth and enshrined her sorrow._

_Disclaimer: I am but a poor sould ridding herself of some creativity._

The rosary beads slid listlessly through her slender fingers as she counted them silently before the depiction of Mary. Seven, eight, nine, ten. Her eyes stared out beneath the sober black of her nun's apparel, probing the face of the Virgin Mary but searching a scene that none but she could see. Her quiet form, lips parted in frozen agony, motionless but for the steady rhythm of her fingers, seemed to house an energy at once restless and enchained. Cerulean orbs bled a sorrow undefined within the narrow laws of verbal explanation, even beyond that of mundane understanding. The black shroud of her habit seemed to swallow the very light from the atmosphere surrounding her. But her face shone from the dark fringe of her coif, a paragon of beauty exquisite amidst a visage ravaged by age.

The painting of the Mother, perhaps five feet high and three feet wide, hung from a rusted hook embedded in the rough stone face of the monastery walls, the wicked tip gleaming wanly in the flickering candlelight. Before it lied a low, flat wooden altar, upon which was draped a yellowed cloth. The altar sprawled across the center of the rudimentary stage and was flanked on each side by silver rods cradling a trio of ivory candles. The luster of the candlesticks, tarnished by years of negligence, was nonetheless a noble contrast to the austerity of the barren room. Threadbare curtains, originally a vibrant burgundy, now a faded echo of its former luster, swept across the worn floorboards and spilled down the halting steps that separated the scaffold from the domain of the worshippers. Various ecclesiastical implements dotted the cramped alcove – plain wooden cups, simple crosses, and clean rags folded and carefully and arranged at the top corner of the altar. Metal utensils clouded by patina were placed tenderly beside them. Snatches of silver glinted through the emerald sheen, shimmering in the feeble light. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

The Virgin, a masterpiece painted centuries before by a long forgotten (and long deceased) artist whom had enshrined it within the tiny chapel, was dulled by decades of caustic neglect. The smooth veneer of her façade was irreparably mutilated by an innumerable number of trivial atrocities that had eroded by means of time, chief among them a jagged smear of fabric that invaded her right arm where the canvas had been stripped bare. The color of her lips had faded from a lush coral hue to a bleached apricot, her eyes dimmed to filmy ochre. Yet, despite the weathered texture of her features, her eyes stared up towards the heavens with a sadness that belied the loving touch that the artist must certainly have painted her with. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

A quartet of arches framed by brocade the same shade as that dressing the scaffold opened the niche to the soggy marshland that served for the cloister's courtyard. Pale rays of sunshine penetrated gray skies and illuminated the sparse expanse of the room in narrow shafts that filtered through the thinning cloth. Thousands of tiny sparrows flitted about the terrace, lighting upon unstable formations of dirt and mud and ripping their small beaks through the soft ground in search of easy prey summoned by the rain. The Abbey was blanketed in their quivering bodies. Loud intonations vibrated the ground, startling the birds and causing great distress to the avian world. The sky was blighted by a cloud of ebony. The clock continued its jarring toll, announcing through subtle variations of tone and chime the time; evening, and the day; Saturday. Sparrows streamed past, buffeting the thick stone and pallid curtains. The figure remained immobile before the Virgin but for the steady motion of her fingers. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.

A sudden gust of wind rippled the line of the curtains and spun a cluster of the dainty nigrous creatures through the burgundy material. Onyx balls plunged headlong about the meager space, scattering in all directions across the dusky room. Atramentous smears spiraled out of control and ended with a sickening thud against the roughly hewn stone of the side walls. A remaining handful of dark pygmy blurs cut through the still air in stunned silence. The loud slap of their broken bodies striking the accoutrement of the far wall sounded the abrupt death of the little sparrows. Their demise was quickly followed by the deafening crash of the right candlestick, upset by the sudden impact of the birds. Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six.

Orange fire sputtered against the smooth floorboards, sparks dancing desperately at the burgundy linen that pooled so near to the fallen candlestick. The sparks ate minute holes in the heavy cloth, acidic in its effect; synonymously, the dry timber of the floor succumbed to the fire's heat and began to emit a crackling heat. At once the nether end of the room was on fire. The blaze corroded the weathered floorboards at a rapid pace, spitting out blackened, emaciated parodies of the once sturdy planks. Red-tipped flames writhed their way up the thick expanse of cloth swathing each side of the room, roaming parasitically across the curtains. Sparks jumped from eagerly from each dry morsel to the next. In a moment, the curtains sheltering the alcove from the courtyard were enflamed. Damp from the morning's light shower, the fire burned these slowly, in effect creating an oven.

Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.

The fire turned last to the Virgin. Her robes were easily incinerated in a spurt of ravenous flames. It then devoured the fabric of her lower body, reaching upwards with flickering arms for the baby Jesus. The flame followed the curve of her arm where it cradled her child, licking at his sheltered head. The paint defining her shoulder smoldered and dripped down the decayed length of the canvas to hiss and spit upon contact with the steaming floor. Her sleeve began to erode, a horrid darkness spreading through her upper body like a malevolent being. Her elbow yielded to an invading red-tipped, charcoal fringe. The fire spit angrily at the bare stretch of canvas along her right arm, quickly encircling the raw textile; the canvas burned more slowly without the aid of the oil. In a similar movement, the fire then spread to the edges of the painting, climbing the perimeter towards that shining face. Vibrant flames caressed the bright curve of her cheek; her hair and the hollow of her throat were quickly eaten. The last to burn were her eyes, those ochre orbs. The rosary beads fell to the floor.


End file.
